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Monday, July 14, 2008

Mellow Weekend

You can probably surmise that my weekend parenting strategy is to pack the schedule with activity. Our kids get bored easily, as do I, so if it's up to me, let's go go go.

But so far this summer, partly by choice and partly by circumstance, a growing number of weekends arrive with very little if anything on the social calendar. This past weekend was an extreme example: no play dates, no new venues to check out, nobody in town that we absolutely had to see.

What to do, what to do? I took the kids to the playground in the morning to give Amy a few minutes for morning coffee, and then we headed off to the mall. The kids did pretty good, although Aaron had a bit of a meltdown at Target between housewares and men's clothing. Jada was promised a ride on the merry-go-round, which we followed through, and some ice cream, which we did not follow through on.

And that was it for Saturday: the ordeal tuckered Amy and Aaron so much that they both took long afternoon naps. And Sunday was even more mellow: to church and back, a weekly grocery run, and a lot of futzing around the house. I can't say it would've been the itinerary I would've chosen, but the kids had fun and slept well, so for a weekend I'll take that.